page_title: Tawny eagle
section_title: Probable live prey
hierarchical_section_title: Tawny eagle / Feeding / Probable live prey
caption_attribution_description: H4-2 Road North of Crocodile Bridge, Kruger NP, SOUTH AFRICA
context_page_description: The tawny eagle is a large, long-lived bird of prey. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Its heavily feathered legs illustrate it to be a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, also known as “booted eagles”. Tawny eagles have an extensive but discontinuous breeding range that constitutes much of the African continent as well as the Indian subcontinent, with rare residency occurring in the southern Middle East. Throughout its range, it favours open dry habitats such as semideserts, deserts steppes, or savanna plains. Despite its preference for areas of aridity, the species seldom occurs in areas where trees are entirely absent. It is a resident breeder which lays one to three eggs in a stick nest mostly commonly in the crown of a tree. The tawny eagle is perhaps the most high opportunistic of all of its taxonomic clan, and often scavenges on carrion or engages in kleptoparasitism towards other carnivorous animals but is also a bold and active predator, often of relatively large and diverse prey. It is estimated that tawny eagles can reach the age of 16 years old. Nonetheless, precipitous declines have been detected throughout the tawny eagle’s range.
context_section_description: Determining whether prey has been taken alive at the nests of tawny eagles is generally considered to be difficult, although observations suggest that during breeding tawny eagles usually deliver fresh prey while raising young, indicating that such prey are usually either taken alive or newly pirated from other predators. Within a Kenyan study, only 1.9% of prey brought to tawny eagle nests was thought likely to be from carrion. While hunting prey, it often takes a variety of prey usually focusing somewhat on small to medium-sized mammals, usually medium-sized to large birds and occasionally medium to large-sized reptiles. A diet analysis in Zimbabwe indicated that among 160 prey items, 36.9% were mammals, 51.9% were birds, 10% were reptiles and 1.2% were amphibians. The leading prey species here were helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris), at about 21% of the prey total, and scrub hare (Lepus saxatilis), at about 16% of the total. A similar dietary study conducted in Lochinvar National Park, Zambia found a higher proportion of birds and amphibians (61.4% & 5.5% respectively), with a surprisingly number of water birds being taken, largely the red-knobbed coot (Fulica cristata) and the African pygmy goose (Nettapus auritus).  The variation in diet between the preceding two study sites is due to differences in habitat and prey availability. A very detailed study was conducted in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya, of the diet of the local tawny eagles over different years. Of 543 total prey items, 41.2% were mammals, 35.4% were birds, and 23.4% were reptiles and amphibians. Of these the most important prey was Kirk's dik-dik (Madoqua kirkii) at 21.7% of the total, yellow-necked spurfowl (Pternistis leucoscepus) at 6.8% of the total, cape hare (Lepus capensis) and crested francolin (Dendroperdix sephaena) both at 6.3% and red-crested korhaan (Lophotis ruficrista) at 5.9%; additionally, unidentified snakes constituted 21.3% of the foods. The dik-dik is a small antelope and is much larger than a tawny eagle. The tawny eagle certainly took dik-diks weighing up to 4 kg (8.8 lb) and possibly even 5 kg (11 lb), with this eagle taking about 80 dik-diks in Tsavo East each year. In different areas of South Africa, small dietary studies determined the diet at nests to be highly variable. In the Highveld, about 52% of 60 prey items were mammals, 45% were birds and a small amount were fish. In Timbavati and Klaserie, 63% of the diet was birds, 34% of it was mammals and 3% were reptiles. At Highveld, 25% of the diet consisted of yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata), 15% Cape ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) and 13% helmeted guineafowl. At Timbavati and Klaserie, various francolins were strongly predominant in foods, at about 44% with another 17% by various mongooses.
  Out of the southern and eastern areas of Africa, less quantitative analysis has been undertaken into the feeding habits of tawny eagles, even around nests. What is known of their prey elsewhere is mainly from wide-ranging surveys, secondary accounts and photographs. It appears in Ethiopia that the tawny eagle may have a close predatory relationship with the Abyssinian grass rat (Arvicanthis abyssinicus) while one tawny eagle there tore open the nest of the Stresemann's bushcrow (Zavattariornis stresemanni) to access the prey. Unidentified large rats constituted a great majority of prey delivered during the nestling growth stage at some east African nests. Fewer details are known about the prey of tawny eagles in the Indian subcontinent. One study, without quantitative data known, listed the prey of tawny eagles in Saurashtra as Indian palm squirrels (Funambulus palmarum), eggs of red-wattled lapwings (Vanellus indicus), crows, mongooses, Indian hares (Lepus nigricollis) and even Bengal fox (Vulpes bengalensis). Otherwise, the prey incidentally reported in India is extremely varied, including even the hindlegs of a jungle cat (Felis chaus) (but this may have been scavenged). In general, tawny eagles in south Asia may focus on less varying prey in general, often reportedly fav
caption: A tawny eagle with its prey, a rock monitor.
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ1000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.6.6", "Image DateTime": "2015:03:05 16:34:51", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.6.8", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:01:20 17:13:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:01:20 17:13:55", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "146", "EXIF SubSecTime": "041", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "041", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "041", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5472", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3648", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "800", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}